Fig. 1

IHC of Notch receptors and Hes-1 in resected EHCC specimen. a Representative photographs of IHC. 1), 2), 3), 4) and 5) are Notch1, 2, 3, 4 and Hes-1, respectively, in the EHCC. 6) and 7) are Notch1 and Hes-1, respectively, in the normal bile duct of resected pNET specimens. Although Notch1, 2, 3, 4 and Hes-1 were stained very weakly in the non-neoplastic biliary cytoplasm or nuclear (a-5,6), the cytoplasmonuclear coexistent localization of Notch receptors (arrow) was defined as positive staining (a-1-4). The cases with nuclear expression of Hes-1 in more than 70 % of the tumor cells per tumor were defined as positive (a-5). b Expression rate of Notch receptors and Hes-1 in EHCC and normal bile ducts. Of 132 resected EHCC specimens, there was positive immunostaining of Notch1, 2, 3, 4 and Hes-1 in 66 (50.0 %), 74 (56.1 %), 56 (42.4 %), 8 (6.1 %) and 108 (81.8 %) specimens, respectively, and cases with positive immunostaining in at least any one of Notch1, 2 and 3 were shown in 106 specimens (80.3 %). c Overall survival curve of EHCC patients with R0 resection. Patients with at least one expression of any Notch1-3 exhibited poorer prognosis than those with no expression of Notch1, 2 or 3 (3-years OS: 57.6 % vs 70.2 %, P = 0.050). Hes-1 expression tended to be related to poorer prognosis (3-years OS: 55.1 % vs 82.6 %, P = 0.093)